644 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



This "Domestic Law" forms apart of the "Laws of Taiho," enacted 

 in 702 A. D. With some exceptions, the main points of these laws 

 were borrowed from the Chinese "Laws of Yung-hui" (650-655 

 A. D.); so it appears, in the judgment of Minakata, that the Chinese 

 of the seventh century had already acquired the finger-print method. 



It is very likely that the Chinese code of the T'ang dynasty and 

 the abundant Chinese law literature will yield more information 

 on this question. 



Some writers have supposed on merely speculative grounds a 

 connection between finger prints and palmistry. Galton ^ remarks 

 on this point: 



The European practitioners of palmistry and cheiromancy do not seem to 

 have paid particular attention to the ridges with which we are concerned. A 

 correspondent of the American journal, Science, volume 8, page 166, states, however, 

 that the Chinese class the striae at the ends of the fingers into "pots" when arranged 

 in a coil and into "hooks." They are also regarded by the cheiromantists in Japan. 



K. Minakata (1. c, p. 200) makes the following statement: 



That the Chinese have paid minute attention to the finger furrows is well attested 

 by the classified illustrations given of them in the household Ta-tsah-tsu — the "Great 

 Miscellany" of magic and divination — with the end of foretelling the predestined 

 and hence unchanging fortunes; and as the art of chiromancy is alluded to in a political 

 essay written in the third century B. C. (Han-fei-tse, XYII), we have reason to sup- 

 pose that the Chinese in such early times had already conceived, if not perceived, 

 the "forever unchanging" furrows on the finger tips. 



But close research of this subject does not bear out this alleged 

 fact. The fact is that in the Chinese system of palmistry the lines 

 on the bulbs of the fingers are not at all considered, and that Chinese 

 palmistry is not based on any anatomical considerations of the hand 

 but is merely a projection of astrological notions. We have an 

 excellent investigation of this tedious and wearisome subject by 

 G. Dumoutier,2 further by Stewart Culin,^ by H. Dore,* and finally 

 by H. A. Giles.^ Not one of these four authors makes an}^ mention 

 of the strisB on the finger tips, and I am myself unable to find any- 

 thing to this effect in Chinese books on the subject. It is quite 

 evident to me that Chinese finger prints do not trace their origin 

 from the field of palmistry but are associated, as will be shown 

 farther on, with another range of religious ideas. I do not doubt 

 the antiquity of palmistry in China, though the date B. C. 3000, 

 given in the last edition of the Encyclopsedia Britannica on the 

 authority of Giles, seems to be an exaggeration, but the conclusion of 

 Minakata that for this reason the finger prints are equally old is unjus- 



1 Finger Prints, p. 26. 



2 Eitudes d'ethnographie religieuse annamite in Actca du onziime congris dcs orientalisics, Paris, 1898, 

 pp. 313 et seq. The Annamite system there expounded is derived from the Chinese. 



3 Palmistry in China and Japan {Overland Monthly, 1894, pp. 476-480). 



* Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, Vol. II, Shanghai, 1912, pp. 223 et seq. 

 •Phrenology, Physiognomy, and Palmistrj' (Adversaria Sinica, Shanghai, 1908, pp. 178-184). 



